The 1990's decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry, the communications industry and the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past few years. It seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world will potentially involve human-computer interfaces; especially such interfaces to communication networks as the Internet. As a result of these profound changes, there is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the world's population which was computer illiterate or, at best, computer indifferent. In order for the vast computer supported marketplaces to continue and be commercially productive, it will be necessary for a large segment of computer indifferent consumers, workers and business people to be involved in computer interfaces. In addition, because of the vast amount of information potentially available through networks such as the Internet, there has been an increasing demand on the part of relatively sophisticated users for implementations which make display terminal access to the Internet less cluttered and confusing and, of course, easier to use.
Among the most disturbing and frustrating user interface information to be presented to the interactive user, particularly a novice or less sophisticated user, is the error message. When an error message is presented to the user, it is usually at a time when something in the operation has stopped working or something bad is ominously waiting to happen. Usually the information in the error message is quite limited and sometimes is presented in computer jargon, both of which may panic the unsophisticated user into a "What do I do now?" state of mind.
In this connection, we understand that the concept and presentation of an error message was developed at a time when the users of computers were a much smaller and more sophisticated group which was much more likely to know "What I do now". Developers of programs have, of course, recognized that their user base has expanded to a much larger and less sophisticated mass consumer base and have accordingly been working to make their error messages more comprehensive and informative. However, satisfying the error message needs of a wide variety of user groups in response to error conditions is a drain on the developers' resources and may be a virtual impossibility with programs having a broadly diverse group of potential users.